Film: Drop City – Pioneering 1960s Artists Commune Documentary

The Philosophical Research Society proudly presents the first feature-length documentary film about the pioneering artists community that influenced a generation.

Drop City began on a rooftop in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1962, where two young artists – Gene Bernofsky and Clark Richert – dropped art from their downtown loft onto the street below. They were determined to make art a part of everyday life. In 1965 they bought 6 acres of land in Southern Colorado and began building a community out of whatever scrounged materials they could find. . .

DROP CITY is a story of whimsical innovation and the drive to create a new civilization on the scrap heap of a wasteful society. Often cited as the first rural commune of the 1960s, Drop City was an experimental community on the plains of Southern Colorado that blended practices of art, architecture, and resourceful living in ways that came to define a global counterculture. The Droppers’ vision of life-as-art was evidenced in their iconographic dwellings, which were based on Buckminster Fuller’s vision for geodesic domes and the crystalline designs of Steve Baer, a pioneer in fractal geometric design and solar energy, who used Drop City as a lab for experimental building. The Droppers built the community for nearly nothing from salvaged materials, including culled lumber and chopped-out car tops. In 1966, Fuller honored Drop City with his Dymaxion Award for “poetically economic structural accomplishments.” But the flood of attention led to overcrowding. By late 1969 all of the long-time residents had departed and the community was abandoned to transients. By 1973, Drop City had become the world’s first geodesic ghost town.

Fascinating, inspiring, and moving, the story is brought to life through interviews with former Droppers (artists, writers, inventors and activists), hand-drawn animation, and a trove of archival material.

Screening preceded by a recorded introduction by director Joan Grossman.

Tickets: $15 (In-Person Event Only)
Please email [email protected] or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions.